


Sunset to Sunrise

by VanillaMostly



Category: (500) Days of Summer (2009)
Genre: Canon Compliant, POV Female Character, bittersweet-relationship-stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 13:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6197605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanillaMostly/pseuds/VanillaMostly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summer tells the story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunset to Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> I watched this movie for the first time back in high school, then re-watched it a couple days ago. Stirred up the feels again. Love this movie and Joseph Gordon-Levitt to bits~ 
> 
> Title is from the beautiful song Boston by Augustana. _I think I need a sunrise, I'm tired of a sunset..._

 

 

When she first met Tom Hansen, that day when she first walked into the conference room with the coffee, she knew he liked her. The years had long taught her the effect she could have on men, boys, and from time to time some women. She also knew pretty quickly, or could guess well enough, the kind of guy Tom Hansen was. Cute, quiet, a little awkward, maybe. And nice. He was certainly a nice guy.

 

Summer usually stayed away from nice guys. Not because she was one of those chicks who went for jerks and dickheads, but because she usually, and nearly always, ended up breaking a nice guy’s heart. Which was bad, because she usually, and nearly always, liked them.

 

That was why she wanted to be just friends, she really did, at least in the beginning.

 

But he was pretty damn cute, and, okay. Summer wasn’t one to lie to herself. She was attracted to him, and he was obviously attracted to her. (Sometimes she had this theory that attraction was merely a mirror. It was like someone emitting heat waves at you and before you know it, you were emitting them back yourself.)

 

And if there was one thing about Summer, it was that she never liked to analyze something too much, or think too far ahead. She lived according to the moment. If she wanted to make out with Tom Hansen in the copy room, then she will make out with him in the copy room. It was just that simple.

 

x

 

This was what she loved about new beginnings: they were always so much fun, so fresh and light and carefree. Yes, she had a lot a lot fun with Tom.

 

He had fun with her, too, she could tell from his doe-like brown eyes.

 

(And maybe he wanted something more - but he wouldn’t push it, because he respected her and he was more than happy with what they already had - and maybe Summer could tell he wanted something more, but she was happy too with the way things were, so she pretended not to see it.)

 

She took him back to her apartment, and it was true, of all her flings she had taken only three people to her apartment before (and one of them was her roommate that spring break in Aspen, so that probably didn’t even count).

 

That night they didn’t have sex and just lay around in PJs, talking, and it _was_ nice. She got sleepy and started talking about stuff she normally wouldn’t say aloud. There was just something about Tom, she thought as she drifted to sleep. He was safe, he was warm, he was almost like the best friend she never had...

 

x

 

And then.

 

Things started going down the shithole. Like good things always did.

 

She couldn’t put her finger on exactly when it happened. Was it something he did? No, not really. It might have just been Summer. She always had this tendency to grow tired, to want to pull away, after a while. People reacted differently. Some got grumpy, some got angry, some got confused, some got more clingy. In all cases, it just made things worse.

 

Tom, sweet Tom, didn’t seem to sense it at first - this change in their… whatever it was (she hated putting labels on things, just as she hated having labels put on her). Just because of that, she thought she would, for him, try to pull through this. She really did like him.

 

And then there was that fight in the bar.

 

And then, _they_ had a fight.

 

Hours after he left, she lay awake, her eyes on the phone, and although she hated it and hated it and hated it, she couldn’t help but think of her parents.

 

She refused to be her parents.

 

That night she walked the 20 blocks to his place, in the rain. This had got to be the single-handedly most romantic thing she had ever done in her life. But Tom, she thought when the door opened and she walked back into his arms, was worth it.

 

x

 

It was supposed to get better, after that fight. Wasn’t ugliness always supposed to be that turning point, the pothole in the street followed by smooth paved road?

 

But once again, Summer learned, life was not a movie.

 

Tom had to be able to sense it now, but he was in denial. He had turned into the pushing kind. Or maybe, that was just how she saw it. His cheeriness, his optimism, his doe-like brown eyes, were suddenly _wrong_. It was like the mirror broke. His affection was no longer heat waves reflecting off of her. Instead they were radioactive waves boring into her, into the pores of her skin, and it wasn’t pleasant.

 

He brought her back to Ikea. As he not-so-subtly tried to reenact their little games, she thought he was like a petulant child, when months ago, she had thought he was adorable.

 

His suggestions, no matter how stupid or lame, she would once laugh at and say, “Okay, let’s.” Now, she could muster nothing but indifference.

 

They watched _The Graduate_ , and she cried as credits rolled onto the screen, not exactly knowing why. That film somehow always stirred something in her, some immense sadness and loneliness. Maybe because like the characters in the film, she didn’t know where she was going. She was on the back of a bus, going nowhere; alone, but not alone.

 

Tom tried to comfort her when they left the theater, but she could tell he didn’t get it. He didn’t understand.

 

She decided she couldn’t do it anymore, right then: holding on to whatever “this” was.

 

x

 

She quit the job about then, too. It wasn’t just because of Tom. She’d always been someone on the move, she’d always needed new beginnings. The office got her a yet-to-be-released-Special-Edition goodbye card, which nearly moved her to tears, and she hugged everybody in turn, promising to keep in touch. Tom did not show up on her last day, and everyone pretended they didn’t know why.

 

She found a job as a sales clerk in a local bookstore. She loved it. She was granted a 10% discount on all the books in the store and she set off to browsing the shelves after her shifts each night. Back in college she’d been an English Literature major and she’d forgotten how much of a dork she could be when it came to the likes of Hemingway and T.S. Eliot.

 

On a sunny Saturday morning, she thought she was in the mood for a sandwich from that deli she always passed on the way to work.

 

She took her favorite coffee mug and _Dorian Gray_ , bookmarked halfway through _._

 

x

 

He wasn’t her type. He was all straight edges, serious, and bookish, and she never thought he would be able to surprise her.

 

But he did.

 

The night before Milly’s wedding, she asked him, eating ice cream in bed while he was on his laptop, doing something for work, “You wanna come? I’m allowed a guest.”

 

He made a face at her. “Dancing isn’t for me.”

 

She laughed. “So you’re letting me go alone? Aren’t you scared, hmm? My ex might be there, you know.”

 

Not even looking up from his laptop, he said with a shrug, “Yeah, I’m scared, but it’s not like I can do anything about it. You do what you want.”

 

“I thought you _loved_ me!” she said in mock horror, curling up beside him.

 

He looked down at her and smiled, his dimpled smile that was shy and open at the same time. “I do. That’s why I trust you.”

 

He put an arm around her, even as his gaze returned to his laptop screen, and she shook her head, laughing, burrowing her head deeper into his shoulder. It was then that she thought maybe, just maybe, this was what she wanted all along. This trust, for her to go anywhere far and wide in the world, and if she wished to come back to him, well, that was her choice to make. He would be waiting.

 

x

 

It was a drowsy morning, the two of them having woken up at about the same time. They lay still, faces pressed into their pillows, and smiled at each other. He had a flight later that day to Boston for a meeting, and Summer, thinking of that, reached over on impulse to touch his hand.

 

When had she known? Maybe it was the moment he spoke The Question. Maybe it was the moment she opened her eyes that morning. Maybe it was the few days before, when she’d caught the bouquet at Milly’s wedding, and it was his face that came into her mind. Maybe it was that day at the deli when this man who was not her type tapped her on the shoulder and genuinely seemed more interested in _Dorian Gray_ than her.

 

Or maybe she didn’t have to _know_. She was someone who lived according to the moment, after all. And so, just as easily and naturally as she had invited Tom to her party, she whispered, “Yes,” and promised the rest of her life to another person, something she had always been so afraid to do.

 

But at that moment, it didn’t feel so frightening.

 

x

 

She saw Tom for the last time in that spot by the parking lot.

 

(By the end of the month she would be moving to Boston with her husband, off to another new beginning, one which she was pretty sure would not be her last.)

 

“It just wasn’t me that you were right about.”

 

She watched Tom’s doe-like brown eyes intently watch her. Slowly, something cleared up in his gaze, and she knew, then, that he was finally starting to understand.

 

When she put her hand on top of his, and they just sat there peacefully, not saying anything, she suddenly remembered thinking, what felt like a long time ago, that Tom was the best friend she never had.

 

“Summer, I really do hope you’re happy,” he called after her.

 

She waved at him and turned around, wiping at her eyes as she smiled.

 

 


End file.
